A new artificial intelligence could tell whether your next post to an online forum will engage others or fall flat.

Computer scientist Qiaozhu Mei of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and colleagues trained a machine-learning program on about 63,000 Reddit threads to learn what dialog-ending responses look like.

Only a lucky few have watched a solar eclipse from above the Earth. Angela Des Jardins wants to bring that view to everyone.

On August 21, Des Jardins, an astrophysicist at Montana State University in Bozeman, will help broadcast the first livestream of a total solar eclipse from the edge of space. She and more than 50 groups across the United States will launch high-altitude balloons to...

Michael Snyder’s genes were telling him that he might be at increased risk for type 2 diabetes. The Stanford University geneticist wasn’t worried: He felt healthy and didn’t have a family history of the disease. But as he monitored other aspects of his own biological data over months and years, he saw that diabetes was indeed emerging, even though he showed no symptoms.

A GPS app can plan the best route between two subway stops if it has been specifically programmed for the task. But a new artificial intelligence system can figure out how to do so on the fly by learning general rules from specific examples, researchers report October 12 in Nature.

Artificial neural networks, computer programs that mimic the human brain, are great at learning patterns...

A GPS app can plan the best route between two subway stops if it has been specifically programmed for the task. But a new artificial intelligence system can figure out how to do so on the fly by learning general rules from specific examples, researchers report online October 12 in Nature.

Artificial neural networks, computer programs that mimic the human brain, are great at learning...

Anthropologists have moved to the front lines to determine what drives people to join terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State. New research shows that the most committed ISIS fighters revere Islamic law and identify closely with a small group of comrades, Bruce Bower reported in “Deadly devotion” (SN: 7/9/16, p. 18).

Social media supporters of the Islamic State, or ISIS, form online groups that may provide clues crucial to predicting when terrorist attacks will take place, a new analysis finds.

These virtual communities drive ISIS activity on a Facebook-like site called VKontakte, say physicist Neil Johnson of the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla., and colleagues. VKontakte, a social...

As Superstorm Sandy threatened the East Coast of the United States in fall of 2012, people stocked up on bread and batteries. They boarded their windows. And they tweeted. During the height of the storm and its impact, between October 26 and November 10, people sent more than 20 million hurricane-related tweets.

Now, scientists have taken almost 10 million of those tweets and used them...

Part interactive field guide, part map, a new app compiles millions of records on species ranges worldwide. By pinpointing your location, the Map of Life app lets you explore plants and critters you might see nearby. Or tap around the globe to see what might be blooming in Singapore, for example. Click on a species name to reveal its range map (one shown below), as well as crowdsourced...